Primary Navigation

Potato Cake or Potato Scallop? Spud War Sets Twitter on Fire

Just as Americans call “soccer” what the rest of the world hails as “football,” and when residents in the Northern U.S. use “pail” instead of the Southern “bucket,” Australia is now coming to its own linguistic conundrums with one of the country’s most popular dish: the “potato cake.” Or, shall we say, “potato scallop?”

Not that the locals in Victoria or those in Sydney are overly protective of their own peculiar dialects, but somehow, Twitter user Kate Iselin managed to start what we now call the #ScallopWar (this term warrants another trouble for obvious reason: Where’s the #cake word?).

On October 12, Kate Iselin posted what seemed like a mundane question on a widely served Australian food: Just as Americans call “soccer” what the rest of the world hails as “football,” and when residents in the Northern US use “pail” instead of the Southern “bucket,” Australia is now coming to its own linguistic conundrums with one of the country’s most popular dish: the “potato cake.” Or, shall we say, “potato scallop?”

Not that the locals in Victoria or those in Sydney are overly protective of their own peculiar dialects, but somehow, Twitter user Kate Iselin managed to start what we now call the #ScallopWar (this term warrants another trouble for obvious reason: Where’s the #cake word?).

Then came the next post, which started the whole debate on whether the “potato cake” or the “potato scallop” wins:

It didn’t take long for Ms. Kate’s post to set the Australian social media abuzz once more. Who would have expected such seemingly innocent words would spark the locals’ passion for their own dialects?

But one thing’s for sure: Whichever side wins, it’s all for the glory of the good old potato. And frozen food manufacturer Mountain Harvest Foods will be just as happy to continue serving you the best sliced (#notmashed) potato cakes or scallops (alphabetically arranged and can switch places!) all across Australia.

So much for the buzzwords, here are some of the funniest and most engaging twitter posts we’ve gathered for you:

Testimonials

I’ve been using my own potato cakes for 20 years up until I met Christina (Mountain Harvest Foods) and she showed me their product and I was so amazed, I had to stop doing my own and start using their product. It’s a very amazing product.

Costa, Pirate’s Catch

My preferred choice is Niceicle (potato cakes) because its real potato, it’s nice … It’s potato, the real potato. You can taste the potato, it’s not mashed potato … That’s why we like it and the customers love it.